Pablo Postigo

Web Enthusiast. Foodie. Geek.

Using Studio Code to travel back in time

Releasing Studio as a standalone CLI app was only the first step toward the new Studio. The second is “Studio Code”, our AI coding agent for building entire WordPress sites locally: content, settings, themes, and plugins.

We soft-launched it in beta last week. To try it, install and run:

npm -g install wp-studio
studio code

That gives you this terminal app:

The tool accesses your local sites from the Studio App, and once you log in with /login, it also reaches your WordPress.com and Pressable sites. After selecting a site, you can prompt the agent to do anything with it, from editing a page to building a full theme. Which is exactly what I did to travel back in time to 2013.

I had an item on my to-do list that had been sitting there for over a decade: “Update the Govoid.es theme”. Govoid was my entry point to WordPress. I co-founded it with a few classmates from university back in 2009, and over time, it became my first entrepreneurship experience. Even though the project has been dormant since 2013, you can imagine how important it is to me.

This is how I used Studio Code, to create a brand new theme for Govoid:

1. I used Claude to “meta-prompt” the design brief. My initial prompt: Give me a prompt to create a theme for govoid.es, a blog about Geek news (technology, videogames, sci-fi). I want the theme to be minimalistic, with some small winks to the Geek culture, very easy to read

2. Claude gave me back a detailed prompt that I pasted into Studio Code:

Build a block theme for govoid.es, a Spanish-language geek news blog (tech, videogames, sci-fi). Minimalist, reading-first, with subtle geek culture winks.
THEME SLUG: govoid
TEXT DOMAIN: govoid
LANGUAGE: es-ES (primary)
DESIGN TOKENS (theme.json):
- Colors:
  - background: #0d0d0f (dark default)
  - foreground: #e8e6e3
  - accent: #39d353 (phosphor green, toned)
  - muted: #6b6b70
  - light mode: #fafaf7 bg, #1a1a1c fg
- Typography:
  - body: Newsreader (serif), 18px base, line-height 1.7, max 70ch
  - headings + meta: JetBrains Mono (monospace)
- Spacing scale: 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 3, 5 (rem)
- Use fluid typography via clamp()
TEMPLATES TO GENERATE:
- index.html: post feed, no sidebar, title + excerpt + category + date + reading time
- single.html: centered column, large type, syntax-highlighted code blocks
- archive.html: same as index with archive title
- 404.html: include the line "// these aren't the pages you're looking for"
- search.html
- page.html
TEMPLATE PARTS:
- header.html: site title with blinking cursor (CSS animation), category nav, dark/light toggle
- footer.html: social links, RSS link (prominent), small ASCII signature
GEEK WINKS (keep subtle):
- Category labels rendered as "> tech/", "> games/", "> scifi/" in monospace
- Blinking _ cursor after site title
- Reading time formatted as "~5 min" in monospace
- 404 with terminal-style message
- Optional CRT scanline overlay toggleable via a body class
BLOCK PATTERNS:
- govoid/post-feed-item: title, meta row (category + date + reading time), excerpt
- govoid/post-header: category prompt, title with cursor accent, meta
- govoid/footer-ascii: the ASCII signature block
REQUIREMENTS:
- Block theme (FSE), no PHP beyond functions.php essentials
- Dark mode default, light mode via prefers-color-scheme + manual toggle stored in localStorage
- WCAG AA contrast minimums
- No jQuery, no external font CDN if possible (self-host via @font-face)
- Mobile-first responsive
- All strings translatable, .pot file generated
DELIVERABLES:
- Full theme directory at wp-content/themes/govoid/
- style.css with proper theme header
- theme.json with all tokens
- All templates and parts above
- Pattern files in /patterns/
- README.md with setup notes
Start by scaffolding the directory and theme.json, then build templates one by one. Show me the structure before generating files.

This did 90% of the work. Studio Code (configured to use Opus 4.7 with the /model command) one-shot a pretty solid theme. I then spent around 2 hours talking to Studio Code to polish the details until the theme was exactly how I wanted it.

I also asked Studio Code to create an Archive page at govoid.es/archivo, and it nailed it again. After the first generation, I only had to tweak a few minor details to get the page the way I liked it.

Once everything was ready, I asked Studio Code to push the changes to my production site, and that was it. I’m excited about what this unlocks. I can’t think of a better way to develop with WordPress.

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